Grade 11 Reflection on Activity, Creativity and Service: Goals for Grade 12

Discussing How CAS Went in Grade 11 and What I would do differently in Grade 12:

Grade 11 CAS was a pretty upbeat ride of enjoyable activities and programs. I think that throughout the year I partook in a balance of all 3 aspects of the CAS experience such as activity in body pump and badminton, creativity in photography and origami, and finally tech tinkers as the main form of service. I think that throughout the year I had a higher up in the beginning of the year, and was much more excited about each of the individual activities because everything was quite new; However, I can’t say I kept up this level of enthusiasm throughout every moment and for the whole year, at some points activities could feel like a slog of repetitiveness but I still think that it was worth the effort and dedication towards each of them.

How did I maintain this motivation for each of the activities then?
Well in a sense, I chose to keep going in the activities that I valued the most and was not conflicting with my personal interests and what I wanted to do. For example, for the physical activities, doing body pump and pre/in-season training was a consistent grind because I knew to me that doing this sport was important and with the amount of effort I had previously put in, that I wanted to keep going to improve myself. This mentality applied to other interests in both the creative and service aspect of CAS. I think that by having reflected and occasionally recalling the skills and aspects of myself going to these sessions would improve, I could keep seeing the benefits and thus continually motivate myself to go.

That being said, this didn’t work for every one of my activities. For example, for the Astronomy club, I found it hard to purposefully engage in the more abstract concepts and activities that we did. Although I had initially kept going, at some point I did decide to stop attending, I think that the activity had still continued on well as when I talked with my peers they were running new projects and had recently acquired a new telescope. Though looking back I feel a little ashamed that I didn’t keep going myself, I also believe that it served as a good way to judge my interests and commitment to this aspect of science. Thinking about the coming year and following potential experiences I will face throughout my life, I think that I need to make sure that if I commit to something I try my very best to do so. To me, this means that for signing up for activities where attendance is expected – I should be more selective in what I want to try out / do some proper research about the background and topic if it is something like this Astronomy Club and to first gain a better understanding.